¿¿Too much memory??

As many of the users here, I've got quite a decent high performance computer, with loads of ram. I have 1gb of Crucial 400Mhz DDR memory.

As many of us here, I tweaked a little bit my system, don't have unnecessary memory resident programs running, and also disabled the windows services that I won't use...etc.

BUT, is this all necessary?? I mean, I usually have about 700 mb of available unused memory while running windows, and the hard drive still spins to use virtual memory. Is there a way of running a big part of the windows os, and programs virtual memory usage to the main system memory? Wouldn't that be a lot faster?

too much?............memory?............believe me, 1 gig of ram, is not too much, and, is, the recommendation for today's games and applications......you can, segregate the swap file, as mic suggests, but, for you? why?, ............as you dwell on having too much memory?.............and, yet, concerned about application speed?.....just let the system manage it, and take a chill pill :grinthumb

Actually its around 160MB of RAM that 98's memory management starts to decrease. I had problems with Windows memory management with 320MB of RAM. Rebooting every two days depending on how much I was doing on that PC, I may have had to reboot a few times a day.

Microsoft has admitted this also. The problem lies in the Vcache. There is another thread about this you might want to search for.

Also here is some information about system resources which in a way also applys to this discussion.

Many people are under the impression that adding another stick or two of RAM will increase the amount of System Resources available to Windows. This is a common misconception. System Resources are unrelated to the amount of RAM in your computer.

The term "resources" refers to two items: GDI resources and USER resources. When Windows returns a figure for available resources it gives you the lower of these two figures if they are different. WinNT, Win2K and WinXP use a different memory management structure, and so have no "resources" as such.

The GDI and USER resources are made up of 5 memory stack heaps under Win95, Win98, Win98SE and WinME.

USER comprises of one 16-bit heap (64KB in size) and two 32-bit heaps (2MB each). One of these 32-bit heaps stores WND (window) structures. This heap holds information regarding window such as metrics, positioning, colours, etc. The other 32-bit heap stores menus. The 16-bit heap stores various other items including window classes, and message queues.

The User component also manages input from the keyboard, mouse, and other input devices. It manages interaction with the sound driver, timer, and communications ports. Windows 98 uses an asynchronous input model for all input to the system and applications. As the various input devices generate interrupts, the interrupt handler converts these interrupts to messages and sends the messages to a raw input thread area, which in turn passes each message to the appropriate message queue. Although each Win32-based thread can have its own message queue, all Win16-based applications share a common one.

The GDI (Graphic Driver Interface) is the graphical system that manages what appears on the screen. It also provides graphics support for printers and other output devices. It draws graphic primitives, manipulates bitmaps, and interacts with device-independent graphics drivers, including those for display and printer output device drivers.

These heaps are FIXED memory segments that CANNOT change in size, either through system/registry settings, or adding RAM.

Note that Windows 3.x had only one 16-bit heap for USER and one 16-bit heap for GDI.

Because of their fundamental nature at the core of Windows, the performance of these legacy 16-bit heaps has been improved by limiting their data to a single 64Kb segment of DOS memory (the Intel processors can access data from a 64Kb segment much faster than from a wider area). If either of these segments becomes full, programs may fail to load and Windows may become unstable - regardless of how much other free memory there is. Although the 32-bit heaps are 2MB large, the resource problem really lies with the 16-bit heaps, and so they do not present a problem.

Note that although the resources are unlimited for WinNT/2K/XP, they only apply to 32-bit programs. 16-bit programs are still subject to 32KB or 64KB limitations due to their system handles.

You should not really be concerned about the level of free resources. You can easily have resources drop to 15-20% without a problem. When Resources get below the 15% range, it is time to think about shutting down some programs.

Low resources are generally NOT a problem in and of themselves and low figures are not a cause for concern. Resources are there to be used. There is no performance penalty involved in using resources. Many systems will run without problems right down to 10% free, where Windows will then issue a warning that you may actually run out of resources. Windows’ performance appears to degrade in relation to resources, but this performance degradation is actually due to the swap file being hit due to insufficient RAM.

There are times that you should take notice of free resources, however. When you first boot up your computer, and before you open any software, look at the amount of resources available. If you see anything less than 75% of your resources free, you should examine what is running automatically on startup. Many preconfigured computers from stores, such as Compaq and HP systems, come with a large assortment of software that runs automatically in the background. Even though you may only see the icon beside the clock, this software can still consume quite a bit of your system resources. Many of these programs do not really need to be run at startup, so you should consider removing them from startup.

System resources should be reclaimed when the software that uses them is closed. In the case of 16-bit applications, all open 16-bit applications must be closed to recover system resources.

In a perfect world, the reclaiming of system resources would work without a hitch. However, the Win9x kernel is far from perfect. In addition there is loads of software available for the 9x platform that does a poor job of freeing resources when closed. It is also quite common for some Windows components to still be left open after a program is closed down. This is an intended behaviour of Windows, due to the fact that many of these components are frequently used and having them open speeds up the access times when they are needed again.

This means that after running Windows 9x for several days or weeks you may notice that the resources available still seem to spiral downward even after closing Unreal Tournament and those 10 Internet Explorer windows you have open. In this case the only way to free those lost resources is to reboot your computer.

The following, from PCForrest outlines various reasons for resources not returning to a free state:

Some programs will not release resources immediately; they will hold onto their resources for anything up to 15 minutes. Only when it is clear they are no longer needed will they be freed.
If you have shared resources being used by more than one 16-bit program, all of them must be closed to free these resources.
Using CTRL+ALT+DEL to close programs may leave resources behind. Always use the program's own Close method. This will ensure the program cleans up after itself (commonly known in the trade as a program's "tear-down"). CTRL+ALT+DEL will bypass many of these routines, so avoid using it whenever possible. CTRL+ALT+DEL is a last-resort solution.
Another exception is badly-written software. Even if you close the program by its internal method, there's no guarantee the author has implemented a comprehensive tear-down. Well-written software uses a logical tear-down. Badly written software may not have a complete tear-down, or may not have a tear-down at all. Best thing to do with such software is inform the author and discontinue using it.
Opening a program and then closing it before it has fully initialised or loaded may leave resources behind. Doing this repeatedly will eventually consume all available resources.
Leaving your PC running 24/7 will gradually reduce resources for all the reasons mentioned above. Therefore try to reboot at least once a week, preferably every day. Reboots can be scheduled to ensure the system is offline during your quieter periods (such as overnight).

You can use OO Software's Clevercache 4 program to manage disk caching more efficiently. Alternatively, you could try making your pagefile small (if you don't want to switch it off), say 10MB, then winXP will have to use more of your ram. Really, its better to just leave it alone.

Here is a link to techspot's very own Windows XP Memory Tweak Guide ...

Please be aware that most of these programs cause more problems than they fix. Not counting spyware, and other pointless programs installed by these kinds of software which most of the time the user doesn't even know are installed.

Originally posted by acidosmosis
Please be aware that most of these programs cause more problems than they fix. Not counting spyware, and other pointless programs installed by these kinds of software which most of the time the user doesn't even know are installed.

Click to expand...

That particular program works well (I have used it), but leaving things alone works just as well.

The best thing you can do for performance is to set a large minimum size for your pagefile. This stops it becoming fragmented as you will seldom use all of it. I set mine to 2,048 MB (max size 4,096 MB), which is ample. Also you don't need to worry when you disk space gets low as windows will still have a 2GB pagefile to play with.

When using large amounts of RAM it is best to test different size pagefiles. Running without a pagefile is fine if you can. Some applications either complain, or will simply not run unless you have a pagefile for them to use. Personally, my pagefiles on two different systtems with different specs, though both having 1.5GB RAM, one is set to 348MB, the other is set to 400MB. Same size is set for max and min size.

Another thing you can do is change the VCache size. You can also Disable paging of kernel, this will put Windows into RAM, instead of using the PF. There are several other things you can do that alone won't mean much, but in combination they will add up to a good increase in performance and will allow you to utilize the extra RAM to your best advantage.
Go here http://www.winguides.com/registry/ look for memory tweaks to find things that can help.

Originally posted by dani_17
Nic, Are you shure that setting such a big pagefile will be good? I'tll sure decrease the time the pf needs to grow, but won't the system get slower because of constant size of it?

Click to expand...

I have been using that large pagefile for some time now and it never gets fragmented, and never needs to grow. It works well, trust me, as I used to get a lot of slowdown due to fragmentation, but that just doesn't happen anymore. Give it a go and you're sure to stick with it. You never need worry about running out of disk space either as windows will always have enough. Only occassionaly does my system need to temporarily increase the pagefile. I hate being pestered by windows telling me that it needs to increase the size of my pagefile, even when it was over 1GB, well now I don't worry about it anymore.

From what I've read, you dont need to modify those settings in 2000 and XP. (Just asking so that in case someone reads this with 2000 or XP they dont try this). Also since 2000 and XP manage memory much better.

Acid, I have read conflicting statements about changing VCache in 2k/XP, although I do know it helps with 9x. I haven't made any changes to mine because the article I read about it said to set it to the settings that mine were already.

Yea, from what I read it basically said 2K and XP improved the Vcache problem (or you might want to say fixed but when does Microsoft actually fix something 100%) and therefore it doesn't really need to be tweaked.